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In each loss there is a gain, As in every gain there is a loss, And with each ending comes a new beginning. —Buddhist Proverb
July 2018, Present Day Islamorada, Florida
I’ve heard it said that life is about choices. Paths stretch out ahead of us—sometimes, we make conscious decisions and other times, fate intervenes and chooses for us.
“You don’t always have to physically go somewhere to experience something magical.”
“You should know that being alone doesn’t make a person lonely. It’s being around the wrong people.”
“This would make a lovely story, wouldn’t it?” he asked. “Our meeting this way?”
“They say home is in the heart, it’s being with the people you love.”
He was power tools and plumbing. I was literature and linguistics.
The physical distance I could live with, I had lived with, but the emotional distance was something else. I couldn’t get him to connect.
“What happened at the end of the movie?” he asked, just when I thought he was going to say good night. “Did they end up together?” He was referring to Jade and David. Endless Love. I sighed. “They did.” “Are they happy?” I didn’t know the answer, but I liked to think they were.
What did it matter if I altered the details, when the outcome was the same? My father was gone.
Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Technique
With her flaming red hair falling past her shoulders, she could make wearing a tablecloth look chic.
I’d forget Mom was gone, and the crushing force of her absence would hit me all over again.
“Roller coasters. I don’t like the way they drop. That nauseous feeling in your stomach . . . you know what that is, don’t you? It’s your organs moving.”
Having a baby would make us a real family, something neither of us had had before. Having a baby would bind us together for eternity.
There comes that moment when you’re holding someone and the pieces of you just fit. Words are useless. The parts of you string together—souls touch through gentle fabric—and when you separate, you both know there’s a lingering strand that forever connects.
“When life throws a curveball, you have a decision. You can go on being angry and empty, or you can move toward peace. It’s living or dying. Choose the path that makes you feel alive.”
“That day was different. I stepped in his shoes, really inhabited his brain, and I could not, for the life of me, understand how a man could bring a child into the world and not know where they were or how they were feeling. I’ll never make sense of it.”
“Now tell me something you’re grateful for today. Just today. Right now. This minute.” He looked up and our eyes met. “I’m grateful for you.”
“If this is what you want, if this is what you need . . . I’ll give it to you. But let’s make one thing clear, Charley. This is not how it ends. This is definitely not how it’s going to end.”
Most people would want to destroy the company responsible for killing their parents, but not Philip.
Abandonment leaves a painful mark. It inks you for life, if you let it, making you believe you’re not worthy, leaving you distrustful of wishes and dreams, when they only disappoint.
Life throws shit at all of us, and it’s how we deal with it that defines who we are.”
The Pappy Van Winkle is waiting for you. Cheers to my two favorite people.
TINHIE. Strange. But sort of beautiful.
